Funeral Crashers
by Kittyaceres
Summary: Leo Valdez has managed the impossible: he has escaped death. And now he's going to crash his funeral.


**I do not own the idea for this fanfiction; it was thought up in a headcanon that I found on Pinterest. Leo crashing his own funeral should be canon. *sigh***

* * *

They didn't want to. They didn't want to admit it. Leo was gone. For good. His siblings had awkwardly sewed him a burial shroud, for all the others of the seven had gotten one. They never burned Leo's though, for hope.

Days passed. Days stretched into weeks. Weeks stretched into months. Finally, everyone was forced to face the truth: Leo Valdez was dead.

Frank and Hazel came out from Camp Jupiter to help with the ceremony. For a couple of days, the six of them wrote a speech, each in memory of Leo Valdez. (Frank's was admittedly short.)

The day of the ceremony was infuriatingly sunny. It was as if the sky didn't care that they were mourning the loss of their friend.

"Sundown," Piper insisted. "We should do the ceremony at sundown."

She played it off as she wanted the memory of their friend to burn brightly, just as Leo had, but everyone knew it was because she wanted to put off the funeral for as long as possible.

An hour before the event, Annabeth sat down on the steps of the Aphrodite cabin with the other remaining five. "You know, once Percy here disappeared for a month. I mean, before he was kidnapped by Hera. We all thought he was dead."

"But he's still here," Frank said.

"This story?" Percy asked, having figured what she was saying.

"Yeah. So, we held a wonderful ceremony for him, and I, being his best friend and all, wrote a speech. And I started crying, because, Percy couldn't be dead! And I looked out at the audience, and you know who I saw?"

"Let me guess." Jason pointed at Percy. Percy nodded

"Yes. This _Seaweed Brain_ crashed his own funeral!" Annabeth's voice cracked, partly from anger, and partly from anguish for their fallen friend. "Idiot."

Percy wrapped his arms around her. "Aw…you were relieved to see me," he teased lightly.

The group laughed halfheartedly in order to try to lighten their spirits. Hazel looped her arm into Frank's.

"Sounds like something you would do, from what I've heard," Piper said.

They sat there for a while in uncomfortable silence, went over their speeches (which they all knew that they were going to forget when they got up there), and waited for sundown to approach. The wait was long and agonizing.

"It's time," Percy breathed.

The group moved to the amphitheater, where a small crowd was gathering, and Dionysus was furiously trying to light the bonfire.

"Here, Francis, you do it." Dionysus thrust the matches into Frank's arms and sauntered off.

Jason took the box from Frank's hands and leaned down to start the fire.

After the fifth or so match died, Percy took the box from Jason. He doused the logs with gasoline, lit the box on fire and threw it into the log pile.

_Finally,_ the fire exploded to life. Poor Frank was so startled that he tripped as he jumped back and fell on his butt.

"What the heck, Jackson?" Jason asked.

Percy shrugged. "It's lit now, isn't it?"

The fire's brilliance grew as the sun went down. Frank said his speech for Leo quietly. Several gemstones popped up at Hazel's feet as she spoke.

The fire popped and it was Piper's and Jason's turn, for they had written theirs together.

Piper swallowed. "Leo was like a brother to us."

"He liked to make jokes. Those jokes were annoying, yes, but sometimes, those jokes were the comic relief that our crew needed to stay sane," Jason continued.

Piper bit back a sob before speaking. "Without Leo, we would never have made it to Greece, we would never have defeated Gaea, and we would probably be dead right now. All of us."

"Leo felt like a seventh wheel, and maybe that was true at times, but Leo is—was—unarguably the most important one of us on our quest." Jason's voice cracked.

The two continued on this way for a little while. Annabeth elbowed Percy and pointed at the sky. "What is that?" she whispered.

Percy squinted. "I don't—"

They heard a whoop of joy as Festus crashed into the wood near the amphitheater. A cocky-looking Leo Valdez emerged from the trees shouting, "YEAH, BABY! I AM THE SUPER-SIZED LEO MCSHIZZLE!" He ran a hand over his hair.

The campers stared at the scrawny boy in wrecked clothes as if he were a ghost. Calypso came up behind him shaking her head, embarrassed.

Leo noticed the staring. "What? Look, I know I look a little bad, but—"

"LEO VALDEZ, HOW DARE YOU?!"

Leo's grin turned to horror as Piper marched up to him. She slapped him across the face, and then pulled him into a hug, screaming in his ear. "How dare you disappear like that! You make us believe you were dead! And then, you…you…you crash your own burial ceremony! Shame on you!"

Leo looked down. Due to the charmspeak, he truly felt ashamed of himself, and he didn't even bother to make a joke. Jason pulled Piper off of him.

Up on the stage, Percy slung his arm around Annabeth and joked, "Don't worry, Piper. He gets his funeral crashing skills from me!"

Laughter pulled Leo out of his daze. "What? I heroically crash my funeral on my way back from a near-death experience, and it's happened before?"

Percy held his free arm up and shrugged. "Sorry!"

"Leo Valdez, you tell me where you've been this instant!" Piper commanded.

Leo rubbed his hands together. "Boy, does Uncle Leo have quite a story for you?!" And he began his story.


End file.
